Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time

Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time

by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time

Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time

by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger

Hardcover

$39.95 
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Overview

A major new biography of the iconic Austrian empress that challenges the many myths about her life and rule

Maria Theresa (1717–1780) was once the most powerful woman in Europe. At the age of twenty-three, she ascended to the throne of the Habsburg Empire, a far-flung realm composed of diverse ethnicities and languages, beset on all sides by enemies and rivals. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides the definitive biography of Maria Theresa, situating this exceptional empress within her time while dispelling the myths surrounding her.

Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Stollberg-Rilinger examines all facets of eighteenth-century society, from piety and patronage to sexuality and childcare, ceremonial life at court, diplomacy, and the everyday indignities of warfare. She challenges the idealized image of Maria Theresa as an enlightened reformer and mother of her lands who embodied both feminine beauty and virile bellicosity, showing how she despised the ideas of the Enlightenment, treated her children with relentless austerity, and mercilessly persecuted Protestants and Jews. Work, consistent physical and mental discipline, and fear of God were the principles Maria Theresa lived by, and she demanded the same from her family, her court, and her subjects.

A panoramic work of scholarship that brings Europe's age of empire spectacularly to life, Maria Theresa paints an unforgettable portrait of the uncompromising yet singularly charismatic woman who left her enduring mark on the era in which she lived and reigned.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780691179063
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 01/18/2022
Pages: 1104
Sales rank: 1,066,536
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is professor of early modern history at the University of Münster and rector of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Her books include The Holy Roman Empire: A Short History (Princeton) and The Emperor's Old Clothes: Constitutional History and the Symbolic Language of the Holy Roman Empire. She lives in Berlin.

Table of Contents

Translator's Note xi

Map of Habsburg Territories xv

1 Prologue 1

Monumental History 1

Male Fantasies 6

An Extraordinary Ordinary Case 15

2 The Heiress Presumptive 19

Rituals and Relics 19

Theatrum Europaeum 30

Back Stage and Front Stage 35

Courtly Curriculum 39

Dynastic Chess Moves 43

The Wedding 50

The Court Cosmos 59

The Logic of Favor 63

Broker of Imperial Patronage 69

The Hapless Husband 76

3 The War of Succession 79

A Change of Rule 79

Loyal and Disloyal Hungarians 93

The Queen Is Naked 108

Waging War from Afar 127

Waging War Up Close 137

Pandurentheresl 141

4 Empress, Emperor, Empire 156

Imperial Coronation 156

Francis I 161

Imperial Politics 167

Loyal Clients 177

5 Reforms 187

The Machinery of State 187

Old Customs 194

A New System 202

"I Am No Longer What I Was …" 221

Change of Favorites 229

Another New System 245

The Legacy of Reform 250

6 Body Politics 253

Beauty 254

Love and Libertinage 259

Chastity Campaign 273

Rwmors 278

Disciplining Subjects 288

Births 295

7 Distinctions and Refinements 320

Audiences 320

Commoners at Court 334

Distinctions and Refinements 351

The Lord of the Signs 355

Court Timetable 361

Work on Charisma 366

Solemnities and Diversions 376

Knights of the Round Table 389

8 The Seven Years' War 399

Revenge 399

Seven years' War 413

Imperial War, Religious War 434

Media War, Information War 440

Disastrous Balance 451

9 Dynastic Capital 455

Little Lords and Ladies 455

Princely Pedagogy 463

Victims of Politics 477

Isabella of Parma 481

Another Victim 490

God and ran Swieten 495

10 Mother and Son 507

Death in Innsbruck 507

An Emperor without a Country 519

How Enlightenment Came to the Court 523

Trials of Strength 530

The Regency Dilemma 543

Cutting Up the "Polish Cake" 552

11 The Religion of Rule 563

On Earth as It Is in Heaven 563

Rational Religion 569

Public and Private Religion 575

Church Policy 585

Vampires, Faith Healers, and Calendar Makers 596

Freethinkers and Fashionable Philosophers 605

12 Strangers Within 612

Unity and Diversity 613

"Fear and Loathing": The Jews 617

"Incurable Mangy Sheep": Crypto-Protestants 627

Our Good Turks 648

13 Subjects 661

Our Loyal Subjects 661

Information Overload 669

Diligence and Discipline 678

New Schools 685

Iustitia et Clementia 693

Rebellion in Bohemia 704

The Last War 720

14 The Autumn of the Matriarch 728

Fallen into the Sere 729

Alter Ego Maria Christina 736

Model Sons, Model States 742

Recalcitrant Daughters 751

Carolina of Naples 754

Amalia of Parma 762

Marie Antoinette 771

Maximilian 784

Stay-at-Homes 788

Bad Weather for a Great Journey 797

15 Epilogue 805

Princely Virtues 805

Control Fantasies 816

Out of Step 819

Acknowledgments 825

Abbreviations 827

Notes 829

References 963

Genealogical Tables 1022

Illustration Credits 1029

Index of Names 1033

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Persuasively conceived and brilliantly written."—Cord Aschenbrenner, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

"Illuminating."—Tilman Spreckelsen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Intellectually persuasive and utterly absorbing. In this remarkable biography, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger paints an intimate and unflinching picture of a complex historical personality while offering one of the most engrossing accounts of eighteenth-century Habsburg society, court culture, and political institutions I have ever read."—Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History

"Riveting, deeply intelligent, and exceptionally surefooted in interpretation. Maria Theresa is a masterpiece of biographical writing."—Ulinka Rublack, author of The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother

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